


who would cross the bridge of death must answer me these questions three

by peaktotheocean



Category: The Old Guard (Comics), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Canon Typical Discussion of Violence, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Holy Grail, M/M, is that a thing?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:20:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28494495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peaktotheocean/pseuds/peaktotheocean
Summary: "That cup does not go in the dishwasher not because it is made of wood but because it is the Holy Grail and it would be sacrilegious.""Mostly because of the wood though."
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 11
Kudos: 215





	who would cross the bridge of death must answer me these questions three

**Author's Note:**

> I was marathoning the Science Channel's Secrets of the Lost and thought "What if Nicky just has the Holy Grail and he and Joe go around to museums and pilgrimage sites where other "grails" are to make fun of them?"

**+1. Nile**

Clean-up duty after their shared meals was never a huge chore, especially when they were staying in a place that had a dishwasher. A rarity that Nile tried not to take for granted but some things couldn't be helped when life had been extended longer than expected. Priorities shifted in strange ways and some evenings of washing the same bowls again and again just felt...exhausting in a way that only a repetitive, meaningless task could accomplish.

Food, at least, was something she could look forward to, especially with the meals that Joe and Nicky put together. Nile would willingly wash a whole kitchen cabinets worth of dishes for some of those dishes.

Still, there was always something new to learn.

“Oh, Nile.” Joe’s voice was soft, almost a hum. Not in a worrying way, no, because Nicky was still reading his newspaper and none of their alarms had been tripped. She waited for Joe to speak again but first, he gestured to the cup in her hand. 

“That one doesn't go in the dishwasher."

"Dishwasher," Nicky scoffed, not for the first time.

Even though Joe was smiling at Nile as he got up out of his seat, she could tell it was about Nicky. For her, but about Nicky. It still felt special though. Like she was in on the joke they’d spent a millennia crafting.

“You let me wash our clothes in the machine but this is where you draw the line?" Joe asked. He reached for the cup and Nile let it go to him without a thought. 

He turned it over in his hands, examining it. 

"The dishwasher is too harsh,” Nicky muttered, still not watching either of them. His eyes were still on the newspaper but Nile had no doubt where he attention was being held. “The washing machine is a gift. And the dryer? Clothes are so fluffy now, Joe."

“Fluffy.” Nile repeated. Joe smirked at her and handed back the cup.

“Just rinse it with water and set it in the drain.”

Nile held the cup up towards the swaying light fixture. It was a stout little thing, three inches tall, maybe two inches in diameter. Dark in coloring and it had a heft to it but it wasn't any kind of earthenware she had seen before. She looked closer and was finally able to see the grain running through it. 

"Oh, because it's wood?” She asked. Nile couldn’t tell what kind of wood it had been carved from. The cup had long ago lost any smell or coloring that was original to it. She hadn’t even noticed until now. “What's it treated with?"

"No, not the wood.” Nicky stopped looking at Joe, his eyes on Nile again. It was an expression that normally she saw on Andy’s face right before things got bloody. “It does not go in the dishwasher because it is the Holy Grail."

"It's the _what_?" Nile managed to keep her mouth from dropping but she looked between the two of them and waited for a sign that it was the punchline to a joke. Maybe it was but not the one she had expected. 

"It would be sacrilegious,” Nicky told her, too casual. Now Nile could see the smirk he was fighting against just coming up at the opposite end of his lips.

"My husband, the kidder," Joe told her. "But yes, also because of the wood. Both can be true. Just set it on the counter his holiness can take care of it later."

"Do not call me that."

  
**1\. Change**

"I am thinking about those bougatsa for dinner."

Nicky's announcement came with little fanfare but that was to be expected considering their small apartment was just full of the two of them. 

"Healthy." was the only comment Joe gave him. Nicky huffed. 

"Do _you_ want to cook a real meal tonight?" 

Joe loved Nicky's single raised eyebrow more than any other he had ever seen. He couldn't remember when they had both adapted that modern action of a wordless answer. It seemed as though sometimes the evolutions they lived consciously through still happened without them knowing. Joe watched as the eyebrow smoothed itself out again, with his husband's expression becoming softer as he realized where Joe's mind was going. 

Joe tilted his head, acquiescing. "No but only because you mentioned bougatsa first, Nicolò, and now it's all I am thinking about. Are you wanting company?"

"Yours? Always. To the plateia? No." Nicky shook his head as he shrugged on a denim jacket. "You just want to argue with the old man who sits outside the kafenion."

"He is there to argue with," Joe explained. "It's why he sits there. I'm fulfilling his purpose." 

Nicky leaned down to give him a kiss which was better known as a "No." Joe knew this. He spoke all the same languages Nicky did.

Instead of arguing though, Joe reached two fingers into the cup on the windowsill and caught a few drachmas between them. He dropped them into Nicky's open palm. "We need a better change jar. I cannot get anything out of it."

"You have been using this as a change jar?"

Joe kept eye contact as he took the cup again and dumped the rest of the change out into his hands, leaving it empty. He poured the remaining coins into Nicky’s hands, cupping them in his own once he had run out. 

Nicky’s stern expression wasn’t holding up, it never did with Joe. He did not mind. By the time Joe had tilted his head up for a kiss, Nicky was smiling. 

“Bring back some halvah too,” Joe whispered against his lips.

  
**2\. Coffee**

"Good morning, husband." Nicky tugged at Joe's curls to wake him but still, it was the smell of strong coffee under his nose that had Joe opening his eyes. He saw the small cup before focusing on Nicky behind it.

"You bring me coffee in this cup?" He righted himself, the phantom aches from yesterday's millionth tragic death needing to be stretched out. Joe drew his legs up into a crossed position and patted the empty space on the bed in front of him. Nicky had already moved towards it. 

Two hands holding a cup became four briefly as it switched holders, even though there was no where for it to go but on the soft blankets covering Joe's feet.

Nicky smiled as Joe sipped the strong brew. "It is because you did not do the dishes last night and it is the only clean one."

"Mmhmm. Sure."

Joe knew it was more than that. There was something about this cup, for all that Nicky complained about its use, he still carried it with him. It did not stay with Andy's stashes or their own. They did not leave this cup behind, not if they could help it. 

For not the first time, he was humbled by his Nicky and what he would give to Joe. 

He took another sip of coffee. And Joe could not wait until it was his time to return the gesture again.

  
**3\. Dice**

"Back with your parents?" Andy commented, seeing Booker already in the house, looking settled and as though he had been there longer than just a few days.

She could see the eye-roll even behind the sunglasses. "Hush. I was waiting for you."

"For me? Everything all right?" Andy kept her voice steady but she couldn't help the response of her body to tense before trouble had even been acknowledged. 

Booker didn't look worse for wear but then again, none of them did, that was the whole point. Instead of answering, Booker reached into his backpack and pulled out a smooth and thin rectangular box. 

A backgammon set. A new one, or at least not one that Andy had played on before.

She dropped her knapsack on the ground next to a worn sofa and settled in. Nicky and Joe had a way to make a safe house feel like a home sometimes. Andy had never managed that. It was always more about the people for her, not where she was. The locations all blurred together just like the years. Or they had ever since... 

"You really came all the way here for me to kick your ass in backgammon?" Andy asked, shaking herself out of her own dreams before Booker could turn the tables and ask her what was wrong. 

"I've been practicing," he swore.

She gestured for the box and he handed it over. It was well-made, hand-crafted but nothing special. Something a tourist would pay too much money for at a street market. "You and the old men in the park?"

"There are apps for it now." Booker said delicately, already bracing himself for the hit he was going to take.

"You're playing it against a _computer_?"

He held up a hand just so Andy could shove it away. "Don't knock it until you've tried it."

"I won't. Try it, that is," Andy added. Booker was still smiling at her, it was a confidence that she couldn't wait to break. She had missed him. Joe and Nicky too. Her family. "Fine. I'll get us set up but we need another cup for the dice. Left my last one in Johannesburg." 

Booker hopped out of the chair faster than Andy ever wanted to move again. He stuck his head through the open doorway to the kitchen. "Nicky?" 

"Hmm?"

"I need to steal a dice cup to beat Andy at backgammon."

Joe winked at Nicky and tilted his chair back to grab a small cup off of the kitchen counter. He let the chair fall forward back on all its legs and handed Booker his chosen cup. "Take this one. You'll need all the luck you can get."

**4\. Tea ( & Booze)**

Andy heard a variety of cups and bottles settle on the counter in front of her. She shifted in the kitchen stool but didn't move her hands over her eyes. Not for the sake of brightness as no one had turned on the lights. She just...couldn't. 

"Here." A soft accented voice came from her right.

"Nicky..." She hadn't moved yet. She didn't want to see anything, not yet. It had been...a long day. Days, really. 

Andy knew they were safe now or as safe as they could be but it would take a little while for the adrenaline to fade. Hearing the heartbeats of Joe and Nicky flanking her helped. 

"It is just tea," he told her, more gently than she would have liked.

"With some whiskey in it," Joe added. He leaned down to kiss the side of Nicky's head, putting another mug in front of him before taking a seat on Andy's opposite side.

Andy opened her eyes and looked at the drink. For the first time in days, since before their latest failed mission, she smiled. Using two holds, she held the cup close to her, curling around its warmth as much as she could.

"I didn't think you still had this."

Nicky nudged her with his shoulder, just slightly. They were both still healing. "I was not going to let it go." 

"You could have kept it in one of the stashes."

"He would never," Joe laughed, as if he hadn't been the one to run into a safe house after it had been compromised in order to snag it out of a cabinet.

"I would never? What about you?" Nicky remembered quite clearly giving Joe his last clean shirt after he had bled through his last one after that cup rescue.

"It's a nice-sized cup. Many uses."

"Many...uses..." Andy sighed. She wondered if some objects were immortal as some people. Until they weren't anymore. People gave objects their importance. That was material culture theory 101. Who gave people their importance? Nicky nudged her, as though he had felt her chasing a thread that would go nowhere.

"It needs to be used, I think," Nicky admitted, eyes flicking to Joe just for a moment. "Go on, drink. Then we'll sleep."

**5\. Cactus**

"Succulents, Nicky, Cacti are all succulents but not all succulents are cacti."

"Yes, they are very cute," Nicky responded obediently just as he had at the nursery where they had spent the whole morning. He wondered if Joe would like to teach again. Just for a decade or so. A smaller school that had a botany program and no faculty photographs on their website.

"It's the perfect size," Joe continued, "The cactus fits so nicely in it. I put charcoal and the rocks on the bottom just like the lady said."

Nicky ran his fingers through his hair. "We have so many _other_ mugs in this kitchen, my love."

Joe held out the Holy Grail in front of him, cactus leaning a little to the left and little clumps of dirt still hanging around the rim. Without being asked, Nicky moved over to the windowsill behind the kitchen sink, scooting over the pot with basil that hadn't grown back yet after they last made pesto and the rosemary basket that had seen better days. The little space was perfect for the small cup.

"Yes but the little yellow flower on top of the cactus matches the coloring so well." 

Nicky had no doubt the cactus would thrive.


End file.
